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The meeting today went very well. To those of you who couldn't makeit: we reviewed the project, the objectives, some of the tasks, andintroduced initial missions to design the robots for. I stressed thefact that we need to take baby steps, we cannot get everything righton the first try. The group was split into three teams: Mechanical,Programming, and Electrical. Upon breaking into groups, differenttasks were given out and discussed. I'm hoping to make the groups meetat different times so that people who are interested in working withmore than one group can do so. If you were unable to make it to themeeting, let me know which groups you are interested in, and I willadd you to the group email list. I will send out the list once I hearback from the people who were unable to attend.

Our objectives for the swarm (likely to change):-Communication between robots-Moving underwater-Map environment-Map other robots-Process data-Navigate autonomously

First, a quick recap of the meeting yesterday:We broke up into the three teams (electrical, programming, andmechanical) and each team was given specific tasks to work towards.

The electrical team was given the task of getting a signal sentunderwater. It looks like they will be testing a radio underwatersoon. They also were tasked with finding a way to determine thedistance between two points. (it's looking like sonar)

The programming team will be tasked with playing around with motorcontrol on our test platform once it is up and running.

The mechanical team was tasked with developing a cheap waterproofmotor that can be tested on the testing platform.

Also, we are planning on getting the test platform robot up andrunning some time this weekend. (Tentatively Saturday at noon) We willbe adding motor controllers, attaching the tether, and waterproofingthe main box. If you are interested in participating, let me know ifthis time works by emailing me at samrdyment@gmail.com.

On another note, a box labeled Underwater Swarm was found in the club,it seemed to contain an assortment of electrical components andmanuals. I'm planning on looking through this on Saturday as well.

During the meeting on October 3rd, Andrew wrote up what we were to accomplish for the meeting.1 Everyone was to set up a redmine account.

2 We broke into groups to develop experimental procedures for testing.

Each group went over what they wanted to accomplish:Electrical & ProgrammingData Transmission

The Data transmission task is to find a way to send data from point a to point b underwater. What the data is, and its protocol are not important at this point.

The group is looking seriously at testing a radio transmitter and receiver underwater. An arbitrary maximum distance of ~10 feet was chosen to test for. This will be tested in the pool upstairs when it has been built. There was much talk about what we were testing, what we would be able to transmit, what we were optimizing, how to reduce signal loss, etc. The following article was mentioned: (http://vger.aa.washington.edu/publications/msee_thesis_patrick_bettale_final.pdf) It seemed to have a lot of relevant information.

The next step is to settle on a transmitter/receiver pair to test underwater to prove that we can get the range we want and to design a way to test the pair.Location Finding

The group mentioned different methods of finding other robots. different triangulation techniques were mentioned. The first step for this task is to test a rangefinding method. Wether it be sonar or something else has yet to be determined. Other relevant tasks are to find an accurate method to determine depth.

MechanicalMotor Testbed

The group started to build a bollard test unit. The purpose of the test was to find the power requirements of motors and the thrust they are able to give. It was not finished, but most of it is complete. The group is planning on meeting at some point to finish assembling it.(http://swimmythang.blogspot.com/2007/03/testing-thrust-of-your-motors.html)Waterproofing Motors

The group has ordered a few motors, and will need to develop ways to effectively waterproof them. This has yet to be discussed.

General-Let me know if you have any concerns with anything in the roboticsclub/underwater swarm. I can bring them up to the officers this weekat the meeting.-The website will be updated soon with our goals and a rendition ofsome of our concepts. You can access the Solidworks files on therobotics server at (W:\sdyment\USwarm). Feel free to copy the files toyour folder and mess around with them.Oct 31 Meeting

Electronics/Programming-These guys are working through the details on the radio tests. Wehave ordered parts and are hoping that they will come in by friday. Ifall goes well, we might be testing above water communication nextMonday. The parts that were ordered are listed on the redmine. We aretemporarily using an arduino from the club to test it out. Once weknow that it works above water, we will be waterproofing it anddropping it underwater.

Mechanical-The Mech team is waiting for the waterproofing supplies to arrivebefore blowing another motor :P. They should be in by friday as well.-Yesterday, a ballast system was built using a servo and a piston. Wejust need to wire it up to get it running. It looks pretty coolthough. It should be up and running next meeting